Fishermen show the catch in the Volga River.
Photo: Eddie Opp
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Rosrybolovstvo Cuts Fishery Quotas
The state-run fishery agency of Russia, Rosrybolovstvo, will finally distribute next week the 2009-2018 quotas on fishery in the continental shelf and in the exclusive economic zone of Russia. Choosing the authorized companies has provoked a sandal, as Rosrybolovstvo crossed dozens of small fishing firms out of the list on suspected quota sale to foreign fishery companies.
According to sources with Rosrybolovstvo, the agency will complete next week the distribution of long-term quotas on the bioresource catch in 2009 through 2018. Preliminary activities of the agency for drawing up the list of the claimants have provoked numerous scandals. The stumbling block is the list of firms that progressed to the final distribution of quotas and the list of firms that were excluded from it.
The changes don’t appear significant for big fishery companies. “In our sector, all companies that had held quotas since 2008 and that had worked up to them in good faith, including all big ones, got the extension for the following ten years,” explained German Zverev, president of Walleye Pollack Catchers Association.
The losers are the firms that used to operate under the joint venture contracts. For some reason, fishing authorities of the country stripped them of quotas despite that the joint venture operation is the form of work authorized by laws, complained Sergei Krasilnikov, vice president at Kamchatka Region’s Union of Fishery Managers and Entrepreneurs.
Nevertheless, the reduction in quotas doesn’t appear accidental. Rosrybolovstvo CEO Andrei Krainy warned in October that the commission hadn’t OKed for consideration “the rentiers with no fleet that leased their portions of quotas on fish catch.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 07, 2008
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